York Regional Police are investigating an alleged assault involving a crossing guard in Markham and an off-duty police officer.
Mohamed Hameed, 70, said that he was helping children cross the street outside Mount Joy Public School when a vehicle approached the intersection slowly, without stopping.
“He was not stopping. I hit on the back of the car to ask him to stop,” he told CTV News Toronto.
According to Hameed, the driver parked the car and the passenger got out of the vehicle and approached him, saying that he was a police officer.
“He grabbed me and pulled my vest out. Then he dragged me opposite to his car and slammed me into the car and he was holding me there,” Hameed said.
The officer told his son to call 911, Hameed said.
In a video of the incident posted to Facebook, a resident can be heard yelling at the officer to “let him go.”
When police arrived, Hameed said he was taken into custody and placed in the back of a police car.
Hameed said he asked the officer for water as he is diabetic. He ended up passing out in the back of the cruiser, Hameed said. He was taken to the hospital, where he was later released.
York Regional Police have not laid any charges in connection with the incident.
“We’re going to be looking at all the elements at play here and trying to piece together exactly what we have,” said York Regional Police Const. Laura Nicolle. “We kind of have to slow it down a little bit and make sure we talk to all of the witnesses and that we get the full picture of sort of everything that led up to the incident, the incident itself, and the aftermath.”
Toronto police confirmed that the off-duty officer was a member of their service.
-With files from CTV News Toronto's Scott Lightfoot
